84 



THE GAME BREEDER 



S. A. Tucker. 



A note from Parker Bros., makers of 

 the celebrated Parker gun, informs us of 

 the death of Mr. S. A. Tucker, who 

 served the company continuously for 

 forty-two years. The letter concludes : 

 "In his death we lose a trusted and faith- 

 ful employee and his death is a great loss 

 to us all." 



The Massachusetts Report. 



The Annual Report of the Massachu- 

 setts Commissioners on Fisheries and 

 Game, as usual, is an excellent public 

 document filled with valuable informa- 

 tion. One of the best suggestions is 

 "the possibility of establishing State 

 owned reservations for hunting. We 

 have long entertained the opinion that the 

 State never would be able successfully 

 to sell the right to shoot up the farms for 

 one dollar a year, and that the result of 

 shooting game on private farms where 

 no attempt was made to look after the 

 birds properly and to protect them from 

 their natural enemies, to feed them in 

 winter, to plant covers and preserve suit- 

 able nesting places. The vermin and 

 other natural checks to the increase of 

 the game are sufficient to reduce it every 

 year to a point where scarcely enough 

 stock birds are left for breeding pun- 

 poses in order to prevent a continued di- 

 minution of the supply. When sports- 

 men are permitted to shoot the stock 

 birds left after vermin has freely dined 

 it is evident the game must become ex- 

 tinct, as it has on vast areas throughout 

 the country. 



The place for public shooting is on the 

 public bays and marshes and on the un- 

 cultivated and waste uplands, but as the 

 vast breeding grounds in Canada are 

 drained the wild fowl must decrease in 

 numbers, no matter how many game laws 

 be enacted, provided shooting be per- 

 mitted, unless some game breeding be 

 done. It is highly important, therefore, 

 that some of the marshes where wild 

 clucks are bred be preserved both as pub- 

 lic reservations and as private breeding 

 grounds where the production of ducks 

 will be carried on because it pays to do 

 so. 



The mountain and waste lands also 



will not stand much shooting unless a 

 part of the area be set aside for breed- 

 ing purposes, and there can be no doubt 

 that noisy refuges where game is pro- 

 duced for sport or for profit will produce 

 far more game, when properly handled, 

 than any quiet refuge where game is, not 

 properly looked after will. The game 

 which will go out from preserves where 

 the shooting is lively will be far more 

 abundant than the game which will over- 

 flow from a quiet refuge where most of 

 it is eaten by vermin. 



There is much valuable matter in the 

 Massachusetts report, and we hope to 

 publish some of it later. 



Birds Versus Cats. 



(A good poster issued by the Massa- 

 chusetts Game Commission. — Editor.) 



The nesting season of the birds has 

 arrived. Whether or not there will be 

 the desired increase in birds this season 

 depends very largely on the protection 

 which will be received by the adult birds 

 during the hatching period, and the 

 young birds until they can fly and have 

 learned to shift for themselves. 



One of the greatest menaces to the 

 bird life of the country today is the 

 house cat. There are very few cats 

 which, if given the opportunity, will not 

 kill a mother bird on the nest or a help- 

 less fledgling fluttering around on the 

 ground. The great tragedy is as likely 

 to occur in the clematis along the porch, 

 or in the flower garden, as it is in the 

 remote places frequented by the so-called 

 "wild" hunting house cat. 



This is no attempt to indict the cat. 

 We have great sympathy for and appre- 

 ciation of the affection between Tabby 

 and her owner. We are simply asking 

 that at this crucial period the birds be 

 given all benefit of the doubt. 



We earnestly ask the owner of every 

 house cat during the next three months 

 to assume the responsibility of seeing 

 that the cat will not be given an oppor- 

 tunity to kill birds. 



The country is at war. To win the 

 war we must have food. It is common 

 knowledge that the birds are a tremen- 

 dous factor in the protection of the food 



